Touchstar Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 04/8/2023 14:00

Yep, excellent news.

We know that Chelverton sold their last 670,000. TST bought back 225k, the Millingtons bought around another 225k and Ian Martin bought 25k so that's almost 200k unaccounted for - less than 3%, so unlikely to bring another holdings RNS unless the buyer already owned some or buys some more.

[cocker] 04/8/2023 12:00

Chelverton completely out as of now

[cocker] 04/8/2023 11:58

PTD operate in my home town and have been a major empoyer for years. They actually make high end specialist products but have like all british manufacturers been it by cheap overseas competition. Having said that their factory sits on a prime site that was sold and rented back to them some years ago and it was then the writing was on the wall.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 04/8/2023 11:39

I thought PTD was differentiated through the quality and characteristics of their leather?

[smithie6] 04/8/2023 11:31

btw

no one gets them all right

I see the Millingtons company website mentions Pittards (leather), whose shares have collapsed & the co. is teetering. (very tough sector with competition & pressure on margin: lesson ? avoid investing in anything whose products are fairly common & just competing on price versus others).

[rivaldo] 04/8/2023 10:37

FYI here's who the Millingtons are (cheers BodRuncie):

[rivaldo] 04/8/2023 10:03

A second RNS today - the Millingtons have bought around another 225,000 shares in TST. Their stake is now 6.98% (up from 4.19%):



So it would appear to be very good news in that a number of institutions/major buyers have been found to take out Chelverton, which is how they achieved a bargain price in taking on large stakes in an illiquid stock from a willing seller winding up their fund.

Of course TST can't announce anything until they've been formally notified by the buyers - and that's only if the buyers were already or are now over 3%. So aside from the Millingtons we may never find out who the other buyers are if they remain below 3%.

EDITED - TST did of course announce yesterday they'd bought back 225,000 shares.

[cocker] 04/8/2023 08:18

The company can buy @90p & chairman @91p & yet the rest of us 105 plus, only on AIM!

[cocker] 04/8/2023 07:43

Truely at a loss as to what is going on here!

[rivaldo] 04/8/2023 07:24

Encouraging to see Ian Martin buying another 25k shares, taking his holding to 830,250 shares - or over 10% of the company:

[rivaldo] 04/8/2023 06:56

TST stated succinctly on 21st June - superceding the outlook in the results - that:

"Trading conditions and trends remain positive and are consistent with market expectations"

Since expectations are for 6.7p EPS and then 8.7p EPS, with that £3m+ cash pile, it would seem that TST are pretty cognisant of WH Ireland's forecasts. Most broker forecasts these days are "guided" by the company. TST's are probably no different.

[russman] 04/8/2023 06:53

buyback must be from Chelvy ; 90p is a fair price to shift volume in an illiquid stock. Still sitting on large cash pile.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 03/8/2023 22:52

I tend not to take too much notice of brokers forecasts generally although they are sometimes based on a steer by the company. One thing that makes me a bit hesitant is the outlook statement in the results seems a bit vague. It's not that it's negative it's just that it's impossible to tell whether they expect profits to be higher or lower than last year.

[rivaldo] 03/8/2023 22:45

I suspect 90p will turn out to have been a rather good price to buy in shares once the interims and the full year outlook are published.

With 6.7p EPS forecast this year and 8.7p EPS next year, plus a £3m+ cash pile against the £8.3m m/cap, 90p looks a good use of cash imo.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 03/8/2023 19:29

Well it may be a better price than the market was offering but I still think unless and until the company can demonstrate some real, meaningful growth 90p looks a pretty full price to pay to me.

[rimau1] 03/8/2023 17:42

90p was never available on the market today as far as i could tell so it was a good price.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 03/8/2023 17:16

Why do you think it was a good price? I think it's a poor price.

[davidosh] 03/8/2023 17:14

Well one cannot argue that buying them in at 90p was certainly a good price. I wonder if more are available at that level?

[arthur_lame_stocks] 03/8/2023 16:12

It does appear that Ian Martin has proved me wrong and successfully turned the business around and saved it from insolvency. That said, whilst I'm not always against buy backs, I think there were probably better uses of the cash.

[rivaldo] 03/8/2023 14:48

Nice - 1.775m shares traded today! I'm assuming that's Chelverton's 670k now gone to safe hands, so the only question is whether TST bought a load back or whether we have institutional buyers in the frame (or a combination).

TST were "initially" budgeting for a max of £300k of buybacks, but had permission to buy back 850k shares.

[rivaldo] 31/7/2023 10:09

Chelverton have declared they now have 670k shares left, so as they had 850k before they must have sold 180k.

Interesting that the transactions took place on 4th and 26th July - if they'd been buybacks I'd have thought TST would have had to RNS them immediately, so perhaps there's a large buyer out there sweeping up the stock?

[cocker] 28/7/2023 19:22

House broker basically on its knees after staggering 86% dicounted placing

[rivaldo] 28/7/2023 15:22

Last year's H1 update was 26th July, so no need to fret yet. Maybe next Monday or Tuesday....

[cocker] 28/7/2023 08:34

No news since 12th of June, no buybacks and more importantly no TU. From past experiences here on AIM that never normally bodes well, but happy to be proven wrong!

[martinouno] 24/7/2023 22:11

Buybacks are just silly with such an illiquid stock in my opinion, all dividends very gratefully received thank you. The company looks like a respectable concern now.